Psalm for exile
by Chinaecherem Obor
On the wharf at the end of the world
my father unmoors to sea
Underwater an architecture of bones
dot the seabed
Swept by the creek’s undertow
my body crashed
open against continental shelf
I will not ask for mercy
my only prayers are for what the eye can see speedrail here
a child’s limbs intact elsewhere
My penance is to
a lineage of hands
that molded these stones fashioned country
from clay
And whoso shall welcome
one such little child in my name
welcomes me
In the deep sea full of thirst
I was full
of salt
the ocean’s memory as clear
as Ngele creek where British fathers
of blessed memory✝
cast lots for my father's body strained his flesh of water
rolled him
into stone
You are peter
on this rock I will build my church
Their ships idled at the Bight of Benin purveyors of a foreign god
I know this land
through wound
through ghost
through song
The water spirit brought us here
The water spirit will take us home
Led by a dog and a drunk I trudge the shore
the waves an explosion of ripples
the water’s resolve breaking, and breaking
At the Igbo landing bodies chorused
into the drum of ocean
My mouth is open
& out of the cavernous whorl a herd
soft & unclean
unscrolling from my inner parts in pairs
binomial nomenclature unknown
alien sweet meat
for this barren earth
Do not call unclean what has been made clean
the voice said
A few more years Lord & I will lick clean
the bone of my life
sink teeth into the flesh
of my biblically accurate guardian angel
& never let go until my body learns to swallow
a piece of God
without throwing up